Pakistani bunkers prevented in Maroof

KANDAHAR CITY (Pajhwok): Officials said on Wednesday Pakistani forces had been prevented from constructing military installations in the Zero Point area along the Durand Line inside the Maroof district of southern Kandahar province.

Local residents last week claimed Pakistani soldiers had started constructing bunkers two kilometers inside Afghanistan’s territory.

Officials had also confirmed the constructions by Pakistani forces on this side of the British-mandated border.

Last week, a government delegation was sent to the area to observe the situation.

Acting spokesman for the Kandahar governor, Dawa Khan Minapal, told Pajhwok Afghan News that the government delegation, led by Kandahar police chief Gen. Abdul Razaq, was still in the area and the delegates had stopped the Pakistanis from erecting the installations.

He rejected the claims that Pakistani forces had entered two kilometers inside Afghanistan’s soil.

Based on information from the Afghan delegation, he said, the Pakistanis had been trying to construct check post in the Zero Point area, but the construction process had been stopped.

Under international rules, Minapal, said a country was not allowed to install checkpoints in the Zero Point of a shared border.

He said the Afghan government and the people did not recognize the Durand Line as an international border and the Pakistani soldiers were not allowed to establish military post in the Zero Point area.

Additional Afghan border guards had been deployed to the Maroof district, he said, and warned if Pakistani soldiers tried to build installations, they would face a stiff resistance from Afghan security forces.

But Maroof district residents said they wanted the issue to be addressed permanently. They claimed Pakistani soldiers had built military installations two kilometers inside Afghanistan.

Syed Abdullah Afghan, a tribal elder in the area, said the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan remained disputed over the past one decade.

He claimed when the Taliban government was toppled in 2001, Pakistani soldiers advanced several kilometers into Afghan soil in the Maroof district.

Situated 190 kilometers east of Kandahar City, Maroof district shares a 155-kilometer border with Pakistan.